Twitter considering subscription fees to ensure 'revenue durability' | Hacker News Reader

Twitter considering subscription fees to ensure 'revenue durability'

thehill.com

Twitter getting toxic was great for me. I left and am no longer distracted by the constant noise.

Going payed might help others get away from Twitter.

You mean we'll no longer be able to say "this website is free" when quote tweeting some example of blue tick stupidity?

I would like to pay for a Twitter without ads and tracking and all those dark UI patterns, but I'm not getting my hopes up:

> Twitter did not share any further details on subscription plans it is considering, but Bloomberg reported Monday that the company is weighing plans to possibly add features for users to pay people they follow for exclusive content.

This is not bad. Most of the destructive power of social media comes from micro targeting and the optimization for engagement(outrage). Both are properties of the advertising model. Not necessarily causally linked but they share them.

Paid social networks tend to be less useful at the network part, as many people won't pay.

Paid social networks don't have to be paid for everyone though. You can offer a basic free tier (with limited amount of tweets per day, limited media uploads and restrictions on commercial content) and use the paid, premium tier to subsidize it.

The trouble is that content generation is potentially inversely related to ability to pay (i.e. much content is produced by people with less money and more time).

Additionally, the willingness to pay makes a person much more attractive to advertisers, so subscriptions alone tend to be less sustainable (who doesn't like more money?).

> The trouble is that content generation is potentially inversely related to ability to pay

Not all content is valuable though. I'd argue that the core value in Twitter lies in the influential people using it and not some random teenagers posting their thoughts. Those people also happen to have enough disposable money to pay for the service no-questions-asked.

> he willingness to pay makes a person much more attractive to advertisers

However the willingness of people to pay also suggests their time is valuable and their "bullshit tolerance" is lower, thus you might lose them if you annoy them too much with ads or engagement-driving features (and opens a gap for an ad-free competitor to take those users). Furthermore, advertising prices seem to be declining (and online advertising itself feels like a bubble) so an ad-supported platform will over time need to cram more and more ads to sustain its revenue (up to a breaking point where users leave) while a subscription-based based platform doesn't have these problems.

Oh... now you are thinking about healthy revenue?

I would very much prefer the web to be vendors each offering their services for an honest pay.

I feel disgusted at the state of things and at being constantly conned everywhere. I can't pay for half the things that I need to use even if I wanted and I must put up with all that crap or vanish from the job market.

So you'd have to pay, and still have to use Twitter?

No they're not that stupid. This is going to be to monetize people who make revenue from social media. So for example, all UK journalists are on twitter because twitter drives good amounts of traffic to it. Why is twitter not monetizing those journalists? It's not like those journalists are actually participating on twitter, it's all driving traffic out to their own organisations.

I don't get the backlash. Sure, I can see the platform imploding if they started charging for existing features, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm pretty sure this will be more of a "Discord Nitro" or "Youtube Red" model. In other words: a couple of goodies that they dangle out to capture whales, whilst everyone else continues to use the platform like usual.

On the other hand, it could be less benign. Perhaps more like Reddit's "guilding" system, which has steadily developed into a major nuisance. The same thing on Twitter would create a major conflict of interest when it comes to moderation, imo.

The company took another step towards subscriptions on January 26 by acquiring Revue, a Dutch newsletter start-up that competes with companies like Substack. Twitter/Revue will take a 5% of cut of newsletter writers monthly subscription revenue. Here's more on that acquisition: https://kjlabuz.substack.com/p/62-will-twitter-kill-substack

Surprising it's taken them this long. It's basically the world's news aggregator at this point.

Unlike Instagram or TikTok or any entertainment-focused social media platform, Twitter feels necessary to its users, whether to stay informed or to stay angry or to feel connected to other people.

This won't work for them... We've seen many times before when a free product (paid via advertising) goes commercial.

What's more likely would be them revamping their business features. They already have a firm grip on their APIs which they can use to leverage this.

i think this is the way the internet will go eventually. The huge software vendors we've been enjoying for free thus far e.g. Microsoft facebook etc. will eventually start charging for all their services being able to due to their monopoly. they will become the "brick and mortar" of internet. Over time alternatives will be developed as the big tech becomes increasingly outdated and obsolete. The internet will reset itself.

Another great reason to delete your Twitter account (If you have one). Paying a subscription for premium shiny garbage.

No thanks and no deal, Jack.

At least it would discourage spam accounts that have haunted twitter for years.

Half the people I like on twitter are moving to substack.

TwitterFans?

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the possibility of subscription only content.

Yea good luck with that one.

Ahahaha hahaha hahah

I would happily pay in order to (a) not have Nazis (easy for them as they already block them in Germany) and (b) not have ads.

This will be interesting.

If I was on Twitter's board, I would suggest the following:

1: Let's put $1.5B of our cash into Bitcoin

2: Let's offer premium features payable only in Bitcoin

3: Let's make it fast and cheap via the Lightning Network

4: Profit

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